Sugar Plain Friends Chruch: Good morning. It's good to see you. It's good to be seen and not viewed. Yes. All hearts free everyone in the mind of the Lord. shut anybody off. I don't want you to go home saying, Well, I wanted to say something but If have your Bibles, we're going to go to James chapter five. James chapter five, verse sixteen. And then we're gonna jump over to first Peter. I'll tell you that one when we get finished with this one. Okay? James The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availth much. Did you get that? didn't just say a prayer, the effectual, fervent prayer. And then let's go to first Peter chapter five, verse seven. first Peter chapter five verse seven casting all your cares upon him for he careth for you. Yeah, bad. Someone you'll still look. James five sixteen. Did I get it wrong? one second. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. No. Yes. I'm King James, I'm not the the weird ones. I'm sorry. Yeah, it's Anywh that's okay. I shouldn't have said that. But it is weird. Okay. Well, anyway. a couple weeks ago, maybe it was I don't know, maybe three weeks ago, I don't know. Time gets away. Some friends used to be members here about twenty years ago. and then they moved away, stopped by to visit and We had a had a good visit and the the wife she said, Do you remember when you took a group of gun people fishing? Now I have I have a hard time remembering what happened a week ago anymore, let alone twenty some years ago. And I said, No, I I don't remember that. She said, Well, you took a group fishing and their daughter, I think she was about seven seven or eight years old, wanted to go fishing with us and I said, Yeah, that'd be fine. So her dad got her ready to go. she was she was all excited. She was so excited. She wanted to catch a fish. And so her mom, before we left, her mom prayed and asked the Lord to help her catch a fish. went fishing, fished all day. And you know the the song we fished all day and caught no fishes. She was the only one who caught a fish. Out of all the people who went, she was the only one. So mom was asking if I remembered that when I said I I was trying to and we didn't have to pick a group fishing. I don't like fishing. And then I remember, yes I did. I did. And I didn't down in Broadview or that's what we were fishing. And I yeah, I remember that now. And she said, when we came back, she said, I ask you a question. Do you remember the question? No. I'm having a hard time remembering the story, let alone what's going on. She said, I ask you why. She was the only one who caught a fish. And you said the only reason she caught the fish was that you cared enough to pray. And I don't remember, but I I wrote it down. I thought I'd keep that one. That was pretty good. You cared enough to pray. And she said, That stuck with me. And I took that. And I used that to teach my girls about prayer. And she said it became a motto amazing. So they left. And I got to thinking about that. And I thought, carried enough to pray. Pretty important and important. Actually the scripture tells us that in all things, in everything, in everything did you get that? In everything we're to pray. I don't have time to bring this to the Lord because he's got he's got wars and poverty and droughts and all this that he's gotta worry about and my little fish story isn't important. Well, it was it was. So I thought about it and I thought I'd share this with you today We're gonna talk about prayer. Did you kinda get the gist of this? And how important it is. Now I have I have thought a lot about the prayers that we pray. A lot of times our prayers don't go very But far enough. Remember one pastor saying, if we cleaned out the attic of the church, there'd be a lot of prayers and we'd get in Probably true. But James tells us that the way we pray is important. Be effectual. If you want your prayer to be effective, it must be fervent. A fervent prayer. That means you really get into the praying part. And if you look in the scripture, there are stories. where we can find that type of prayer. Do you remember the story of Hannah? Anyway, we got a couple heads going this way. Hannah wanted a child and she was praying for a child who couldn't have one. And she prayed every day. In fact, it became such a burden upon her that Eli priest saw her praying one day, her mouth was moving, but he didn't hear anything, and he thought she was drunk. And he w kinda got on to her and and she explained what was going on. She was asking for a child. She wanted a son. And God granted her Samuel. Now, I want you to think about this. I think God was going to give her Samuel anyway. But she didn't know that. She was going to raise her son in the temple. And she turned her son back over. to God and God knew Samuel. We know the story of Samuel. I think we do. Remember when he was just a young boy? God spoke to him? As a young boy. Now Hannah wanted a son, but God wanted a prophet. And so it worked out, didn't it? Now there are times that we have asked God for things and it just doesn't happen. And we quit. She didn't quit. She didn't quit. And she really didn't care what Elon caught either. She didn't care. She wanted a son, and so she prayed for that son. And God granted. If you recall, all through the scripture, there were people who continued to pray for individuals. Now, Samuel, Samuel prayed for Saul until God told Samuel, Don't pray for him anymore, because I'm not going to answer your prayer. God told Samuel, I'm not going to answer your prayer. And Samuel continued to pray for Saul. Isn't that amazing? Now, Hezekiah, the prophet came to Hezekiah and told Hezekiah, Sorry Hezekiah, but you're gonna die. Wow, you got fifteen years and you're dying. Well, at least he knew we had fifteen years. Some of us, we don't know if we got fifteen minutes, correct? And Hezekiah said he turned his face to the wall and began to pray, and God granted him those fifteen years. Prayer life is important. You recall Daniel prayed for twenty one days before he got a prayer answer. And finally an angel actually came to I haven't had an angel come to me lately, have you? say, well, I know you were praying twenty one days ago and God answered your prayer, but I had a little difficult time getting here to tell you that your prayer's been answered. But your prayer was answered twenty one days ago. Sometimes we don't understand what the timeline is. We don't understand the difficulty in getting our prayers answered. The thing that we need to remember is that we are constantly coming to the Lord, that we can come boldly to the throne of grace, bring the petitions of our heart to him, and he will hear our prayers. And we go, well, I don't know if I should pray about this. It's not really a big deal. It is a big deal. It is a big deal because God, this is the will of God. Everything. Bring everything. Did you get that? And sometimes we we don't see the importance of bringing everything to God. Now Does he care for us? Think about this. The scripture says he looks after the sparrows. That if one falls, he knows about it. And then the next verse he says, he's even got the hairs of your head numbered. He knows exact. I don't know how he does that because it's keep falling out, you know. He's got a got a full time job right there. Think about that. That's pretty small, isn't it? That's pretty small. That God is concerned enough about us to know everything about us, and that He cares it for us and He loves us and He wants to take care of us, but He wants us to come to Him. That's all. That's pretty simple. I got to thinking, well, how do we pray? The way we pray today is so different than when I was younger. When I was going to church as a young kid, prayer was totally different. People were praying for individual spiritual needs. That's what they prayed for. And Sometimes It was embarrassing because they pray your name out loud. They call your name and ask the Lord to convict you. It was a prayer I heard prayed that had stuck with me all my life. scared me that if that person was ever gonna pray for me, I didn't want to pray it for me. Because I remember them saying, Lord, shake them over the very flames of hell And they didn't stop there. Take away their sleep, take away their appetite, make their life miserable. And I I'm listening to that and I'm thinking, this is scary. What if that does happen? But see, people were desperate. They wanted their people saved. They wanted their sons and daughters saved. And this was something I heard often Lord at any cost. That's scary. Lord at any cost. I've shared this before. I remember standing beside my dad at the hospital. sister had getting in a car wreck and she was in a coma. Didn't look like she was gonna make it. And I remember my dad saying, All I want is that she'd like He wasn't asking the Lord to save her basically who just wanted to make sure everything was right. She was better and she's now serving the Lord. He's an ordained minister in the western in church. So God answered the prayer. But the prayers back then was a little different. We don't hear those prayers today. We don't have the burden for the loss. We need to to get back to that fervent. of prayer that we see those that we love running. So our heads for prayer. Father, we thank you for the many things that you did for us, the prayers that you answered. And we pray, Lord, that you work upon our hearts and challenge us to bring everything to you. Help us, Lord, to have a burden for those that are lost within our families, our friends and our neighbors. Move upon us, Lord, in a way that Give us the burden for the loss that we need. And we pray that you go with us this day. Keep your hands upon us. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen. Shake hands, be friendly, hear dismiss.